Some art from other artists today, celebrating Earth Day, April 22nd, yesterday.

A beautiful, speaking felt sculpture installation on the disappearance of species by my artist friend Carmella Karijo Rother at Wall Space Gallery in Ottawa, part of an exhibition of art on an environmental theme: “Where The Wild Things Aren’t”:

Nuno felted panels overhead:

A thread and bone installation by Jessica Marion Barr. Jessica’s work is about the unexplained 2011 deaths of hundreds of ordinary birds like crows and starlings which had reportedly simply dropped out of the sky en masse.

…Some days as a fibre artist I feel like this old weatherbeaten bench in my garden….was thinking thatbthe Earth might feel similarly sat upon..

But then to console, there is the curated natural environment of one’s garden, and the salve of planted beauties:

“Purple Passion” apple blossom:

Epimedium in pink and yellow:

The first tulips (with pink epimedium) and ferns of a scarily-early spring in USDA Zone 4:

The Forsthyia is almost finished blooming and April is not even over…All over the city of Ottawa I am seeing older varieties of Forsythia in full golden bloom in spots where I had never noticed them before…for many years, over thirty in fact, my older variety ” Nothern Gold” would get nipped by frost in early spring and fail to bloom. But not this year. This yearvit seems that not only my old Forsythia but every last one in the city has produced blossoms…these are the signs of a changing climate.

Here are the last of the golden blossoms among the Lily of the Valley

Happy Saint George’s Day today, April 23rd!

My High School teacher in England, Miss Clarkson, historian and patriot, always wore a red rose on her black (chalk-dusted) academic gown on this day. I always buy red roses on this day in gratitude and love for my native earth – and for my every teacher from then until now.